Man says police officer threatened to kill his dogs

KANSAS CITY, Mo. – A Kansas City man says he’s been terrified since an encounter with police on Monday evening. He says officers came to his home in southeast Kansas City looking for people he’d never heard of and when he refused to let them inside, things turned ugly.

Eric Crinnian, a lawyer, heard a loud banging at his door Monday night, he was instantly alarmed since a neighbor’s house was robbed a few weeks ago, so he grabbed a crow-bar.

Crinnian said three police officers were outside his house.

“I open the door a little bit wider and he sees that I have something in my hand, so he pulls his gun, tells me to put down whatever I’ve got and then come out with my hands up, so I do,” Crinnian said.

They wanted to know where two guys were, and Crinnian later found out police believed they violated parole.

“I said, ‘I have no idea who you’re talking about I’ve never heard of these people before,'” he said.

To prove it, he said police asked to search his house, Crinnian refused multiple times. He said they needed a warrant.

Then he said one police officer started threatening him saying, “If we have to get a warrant, we’re going to come back when you’re not expecting it, we’re going to park in front of your house, where all your neighbors can see, we’re gonna bust in your door with a battering ram, we’re gonna shoot and kill your dogs, who are my family, and then we’re going to ransack your house looking for these people.”

“If that’s the case and those are the things that were said, I would think those would be inappropriate,” said John Hamilton.

John Hamilton is an Associate Professor of Criminal Justice at Park University and former police officer. He said having a warrant is always the best way for police to search a home, and while the threats aren’t illegal, they might violate a department policy.

“I just think it’s a dangerous way to do policing, because it makes it tenuous when you appear in front of the court in a case like that,” Hamilton said.

Crinnian said he’s never had a problem with police before in his life, and he still has a great amount of respect for the Kansas City, Mo. Police Department. However, he also said he wants the situation investigated, so he filed an Office of Community Complaints Report.

A spokesman for the Kansas City, Mo. Police Department says he can’t discuss ongoing OCC reports and they are investigated internally.

103 comments

Hermicide

When are the police going to realize that the average law abiding citizen now considers them the enemy. They aren’t peace officers anymore. They are special forces wannabe’s with inferiority complexes and cool toys who think they are fighting a counterinsurgency in our own country. It’s a scary turn of events.

john Doesky

This thread should be a wake up call to the police. 58 responses to date at it’s 57 to 1 against the police. I’d wager if this story was reported 20 years ago those numbers would be reversed. I’m a die hard conservative and my attitude has also shifted 180 degrees over the last 20 years to pretty much consider the police the enemy and someone to fear. This is very bad for America and the police better wake up to the fact that they are losing the support of the whole spectrum of America including the majority of law abiding average Americans.

shovelDriver

Not illegal for a cop to make threats under Color of Law? Not illegal for a cop – or anyone – to threaten to bust down doors, to kill animals, destroy property, etc, just because someone dares to assert rights?

People may want to question this attorney’s qualifications. Why, even the FBI, on its’ website, publicizes that “it’s a federal crime for anyone acting under “color of law” willfully to deprive or conspire to deprive a person of a right protected by the Constitution or U.S. law. “Color of law” simply means that the person is using authority given to him or her by a local, state, or federal government agency.”

Got that?

It is a federal crime.

Now, when will we see a report that the local police chief, or the Sheriff, and the FBI, and the District Attorney, local and federal, are all anxiously piling up in the court to put a stop to the egregious abuse by cops?

“Now, when will we see a report that the local police chief, or the Sheriff, and the FBI, and the District Attorney, local and federal, are all anxiously piling up in the court to put a stop to the egregious abuse by cops?”

amphibspook

Yep. Your typical rogue cops that make all the other cops look bad. They should be fired and the pensions dissolved.

Basically the cop said… basically… I am the law, obey me, I have authority. if you don’t respect my authority and do what is told of you – there will be repercussions.

This kind of behavior in my opinion is unacceptable. The cops should have done their job and got a warrant before they arrived and if they have no probable cause then they should respect his 4th amendment rights – just as they would want someone respecting their rights as well.

Back in the day there was respect between police and the populace for which they served. More and more in today’s time we have an ever escalating militarization of our police and total disconnect between their attitudes and the services required of them.

Michael Lear

ResponsibleGunowner

Armed criminals with badges are no different than armed criminals without badges. If these so-called Officers Of The Law tried entering my house without a warrant while brandishing deadly weapons and threatening lethal force against me and my loved ones, they would meet with appropriate counter-force.

alvinjh

Bert

Holy, sheat.

Is this what passes for “police” today? Nut jobs?

You know, every decent cop, should get together and run these clowns out of the service. Else, they will just be labelled losers too. The only way for them to avoid this is to clean their own ranks. But that would take guts. See the problem?

These cops should be fired, possibly sued and “Blacklisted” in the local paper as “Ex Rogue Cops” or worse……. It’s because of these few that makes those in the force that are doing there jobs and not overstepping their boundaries appear to be just as corrupt as those that are.

This was nothing more than a pissed off cop who was having a tantrum. Most people dont say no .. they are too afraid to. Id be hiring a lawyer and suing them.His behavior was inappropriate and unbecoming of an officer He needs to be suspended from the force

JenR

For those of you still under the misimpression that law enforcement is there to serve and protect, review the hundreds of thousands of news reports since 2001 about jackbooted badge-wearing psychopathic thugs killing, in the throes of bloodlust, old people, homeless, mentally ill, children, and of course dogs. If after that you still have the rainbows and butterflies trust in LEO then you might want to visit a few survivors of Europe in the late 1930s to educate yourself as to what the future holds for Americans.

FreeOregon

To change police behavior, disarm the police. One result is you will attract peace officers to the profession, people who know how or want too learn how to persuade without threats of violence. A second result is that the thugs previously recruited will find the profession less satisfying, since most of them have no courage without a weapon.

gindjurra

On the contrary, the threats not only ARE illegal, they are felonies.

Federal law (18USC242) makes it a misdemeanor level crime to violate someone’s constitutional rights (such as the right to refuse a warrantless search) under color of law. Making threats of the use of a dangerous weapon escalates this to a felony level offense.

There’s a related federal law as well, 18USC241, that makes a conspiracy (by, say, three police officers) against rights even without threats of violence a felony for all the officers involved.

Threatening to destroy property and abuse family members if the victim exercises his constitutional rights is illegal pure and simple.

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6.

And we can tell that you are intelligent by your razor wit… your superlative use of sarcasm illustrates that in spades. I especially like the bit where you used a false premise to compare the above’s personally passionate disapproval of currently applied policies within our constabulary to innocent, or at least undeserving victims, that may seem rather indiscriminate and perhaps brutal; with a lack of intelligence on their part in the comment in question. That is deep sarcasm at it’s finest. You strike me as the sort to see the brilliance that is mocking those we perceive as inferior to ourselves, due to our inflated egos and over-inflated sense of self-worth. Well played! After all, it would take a true idiot to believe your satire were genuine.

“For no one with true intelligence would mock those with less.” -Churchill

skipNclair

Thomas Rice

daveugber

you, 6., are mistaken…primarily because use flashed a BUNCH of fancy words around, but never really said much…grammatically-speaking, your rant was acceptable, but the message was muddled in undefined pronouns and baseless descriptions of the observations made…i would suggest that you redefine your argument using specific examples and more proper nouns…

the police in question should be put behind a desk or fired…

we are – as a society – at the tipping-point, where we will either have a renaissance of liberties or a revolution. The current psych-profile tests given to prospective police winnow-out people with consciences. Read the questions on those tests. They specifically put contrary questions to try and filter liars, cheats and crooks, but at the same time, are actually forcing anyone who takes them to lie which makes the testee a cheat and a crook…there is no possible way to ‘pass’ one of these pshyc tests without either being a borderline sociopath and dishonest, which has led to (after a generation) a police force full of young posers who are less-intelligent, lacking in empathy and more-easily corrupted…